Challenging the Norm in “Porphyria’s Lover”

A common pattern throughout Western civilization is the function the arts, in their various mediums, have in challenging and undermining the dominant, contemporary social discourse. Whether it is Plato’s Republic or Thomas More’s Utopia or Darwin’s Origin of Species, literature has played a foundational role in cultural and social revolution. The Romantic Monologue’s of Robert Browning, perhaps on a smaller scale, function congruently to question and evaluate the social mores of Victorian England. Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” encapsulates this notion. The setting of the poem, the characterization of the lover, and the sadistic violence of the poem synthesize together and highlight Browning’s attempt to evaluate social conventions related to masculinity, marriage, and domesticity. 

From the onset of the poem, the audience is transported into what is clearly a Romantic setting within the pastoral backdrop of a lakeside cottage along with the sublimity of a thunderstorm. This is the type of setting that the Romantic audience would have expected to watch their story unfold in. Moreover, the Romantic motifs are furthered as the lover enters “gliding” and “shut[ting] the cold out and the storm” (2-3). On the surface, the contemporary Romantic would resonate with this depiction of femininity in which the women serves a warming, calming, and subordinate presence. However, Browning wastes no time in shattering this conception of domestic bliss and shocking his audience. 

The ambiguous identity of the lover and Browning’s characterization of her undermine the dominant social conventions related to femininity. Victorian women were held to strict standards of modesty and monogamy, and, as the lover makes “her smooth white shoulder bare and all her yellow hair displaced (1)," Browning begins to shock the reader’s sensibilities.  Browning writes of this overt sexuality as if it is acceptable. More than just attempting to undermine convention, Browning kills the lover to underscore the role of women in contemporary society. While many interpretations attempt to explain why the lover dies, a likely one is that she is killed because she fails to conform the standard of femininity, and therefore, fails to be a woman.  In her own analysis, literary critic, Julie Sims Steward, corroborates this analysis, arguing “[Porphyria’s Lover] depicts the painful disjuncture between fantasy and reality for women, especially those who dare to differ from the domestic norm” (84). Through this characterization, Browning confronts the reader to evaluate the role and treatment of women in contemporary society. 

The role violence plays in the poem had also served as the basis for a corpus of analysis. Just as Browning murders the lover to foreground the role of women, he also portrays the masculine violence to highlight the treatment of women in Victorian society. Melissa Gregory argues that Browning’s depiction of domestic ruin is unsurprising as “sexual violence resonat[ed] in the Victorian social scene, a culture in which the power dynamics of married life were fiercely scrutinized and debated” (496). This particular poem possesses such overt violence that it agitated the sensibilities of many readers who pretended that such brutality only existed in the margins of society when in reality domestic violence plagued the humdrum of Victorian Society. By making the violence so stark, emotionless, and even acceptable, Browning effectually holds a mirror up to the face of the morally decaying romanticism of Victorian Society. Furthermore, Browning even places the lover in a subordinate position, “As he silently watches her speaking to him, he becomes the mastered object to be petted and loved. It is she who is reported as murmuring how she loved me, while he remains the silent watcher” (Engersoll 153). In writing the poem as monologue, Browning allows himself to construct an alternate persona that personifies the deficiencies of Victorian society, which enables him to explore controversial issues. 

The “shock factor” of the poem becomes more coherent as the historical context is evaluated along with the asymmetrical rhythm of the poem. Victorian England was a petri dish of technological and social evolution. The industrial revolution transformed England from a predominantly rural population to a booming metropolis. However, along with these innovations, violence, poverty, and promiscuity began to plague society. As these evolutions grafted themselves into society, individuals began to experience a certain type of numbness to acts of sex, violence, and other intrigue. Consequently, Browning utilized poems like “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” to shock his audience further and counteract this apathy. Even the asymmetric meter of the poem compliments this attempt. The poem contains an ABABB pattern which is congruent with the persona’s manic statements. By constructing the poem this way. Browning reflects the madness of Victorian society and attempts to shock his audiences into perceiving their society synonymously. 

In challenging the societal constructs of Victorian England, it is important to take note that Browning is not a revolutionary or attempting to perform some moral evaluation; “Porphyria’s Lover” seem to reflect a deeper prognosis of the pervasive conundrum Victorian England found itself in. While the world was traveling at a staggering pace toward modernity, the rigidness of tradition still possessed a tenacious grip around the sensibilities of the populace. “Porphyria’s Lover” continues the rich literary tradition of exposing the contradictions of society and inciting a slow, subtle revolution.

Works Cited

Christ, Carol T., Catherine Robson, Stephen Greenblatt, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton anthology of English literature. 8th ed. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. Print.

Engersoll, Earl. "Lacan, Browning, and the Murderous Voyeur: "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess"." Victorian Poetry 28.2 (1990): 151-157. JSTOR. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.

Gregory, Melissa. "Robert Browning and the Lure of the Violent Lyric Voice: Domestic Violence and the Dramatic Monologue." Victorian Poetry 38.4 (2000): 491-510. JSTOR. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.

Steward, Julie Sims. "Pandora's Playbox: Stevie Smith's Drawings and the Construction of Gender." Journal of Modern Literature 22.1 (1998): 69-91. JSTOR. Web. 2 Mar. 2013.